Let your mind go, let yourself be free (pt5)
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~*~
“Wow.”
Jensen blinks and wipes the grit from his eyes. They're back at Goldi's, nowhere else to go and they are supposed to meet the crew here tonight anyway. Pieces of paper cover the table, all filled to the brim with sketches, some just one big picture, some with more than one; overlapping, interloping or interrupted by white.
Jay's holding one up, staring at it like it held any meaning. “What happened to the other ideas?” he asks, but never tears his eyes away.
“Dismissed them.” Jensen croaks and with that scratchy sound, Jared's gone and brings him a soda, as if he'd asked for it. Jay sits down next to him, nudges his elbow away and shoves the drink towards him. As if he didn't get the hint the first time. Jensen scowls but drinks, the sticky-sweet Mountain Dew making him choke but it revives him with the sugar-rush that sloshes through his veins.
All the time he spent sketching before, all the colors and pictures have gone and what's left is what he drew now, entirely different but entirely more important, better, more urgent to be done right, to be done now.
“I think we might need some more green, though.” Jay muses, turning one page on its top and squinting a little, like he can't make out what's in it. Which is bullshit, Jensen knows. “Where's the squirrel?”
“Squirrel? What squirrel?”
“Exactly. We need a squirrel.”
He drops his pencil. Looks up into the very earnest eyes of his friend, judges him to not be pulling his leg about the freaking squirrel and sighs. “So put it in yourself. I know you can do that as well as I - don't see why I should do all the work anyway.”
“Awww, Mr Grouchy needs a kiss?” Jay teases and pulls him close, gives him a sloppy, wet kiss on the cheek, holding him tight a little longer than maybe necessary. Just enough for Jensen to melt a bit, tension leaving him in waves and tiredness swirling away like water through a drain.
“Stop slobbering on me, you big ape.” he grouches, but it's just a tease, not bad mood. Jay only grins and bares his teeth at him and steals his Mountain Dew.
~*~*~*~
There is no resistance from the crew. They take a look at the pictures Jensen wants - needs - to create for the competition and the only thing Blue says is that they’d need to find better places for them. To keep them from being destroyed in the near future, she says, because these things deserve eternity.
She’s sometimes a bit melodramatic.
~*~*~*~
The moment the clock hits eight, Jensen, Jay and Robin make their way to the first location, a wonderfully blank wall in a shopping-center. It shuts the doors at nine, the shop-owners would be gone by then, the place empty except of course for the security-guards.
It’s a wonderful place, one that Blue scouted out. She’s with Bones and Crop, though, doing their own piece that she’s had in her black book for a few years now and never got the chance to start with. It’d fit with the overall-theme Jensen set with his new ideas, so they agreed to let her do it tonight.
“Shit.” Jensen mutters after he bites into the burrito from the food-court. It’s half-price, and it tastes like half-price, but that’s not the reason for swearing.
Two guys he knows, not well but well enough to place them, just wandered past, not looking in their direction at one of the tables or if they were, not connecting two guys in black suits and one man in casual jeans and checkered shirt as belonging to their kind of people. The two are sprayers. There’s little doubt in Jensen’s mind that they’re here for the same reason: Bob’s Coffee Bunker, on top of which the wall is calling for color.
“What?” Jay asks, not looking up from the extra-large helping of crispy fries that he charmed from the girl behind Burger-Rama’s counter. She even made them fresh.
“Just saw Kermit and Gonzo.”
“Shit.” Robin agrees and all three drop the food they just had in their hands. “What now?”
If you had sharp ears, you’d be able to hear them think.
“Guess we have to either start before they do, or get them out somehow.”
“How?” Jensen asks, because there is no way anyone would start before the mall closes and after that, they two crews would be alone. Getting them out is the better option.
“Dunno. Let me think.”
They do, Robin goes on a stroll through the emptying corridors and tries to find the security. If they get the Boys out, they’d have to go with the original plan, and that needs some more work. And Jensen sits close to Jay, not doing anything visible but his head is swirling with possibilities, colors, ideas.
~*~*~*~
He didn’t notice Jay sending a message to Robin. But their friend is back, slumped in his seat and looking like a bored teenager and stares questions at Jared.
Jensen sets down the pencil and stores his sketchbook in his pocket. Jay grins, leans closer and glances around a little, looking conspicuous as hell.
“I got the best idea ever.”
~*~*~*~
In the end, it's simple. Robin slips behind the unmanned information-desk - unmanned because Jared is playing dumb tourist who couldn’t find the way out and begged the nice woman to show him the way - and calls security. Siccing them on the Good Boys is painfully easy, and Jensen watches the two burly guards intercept the sprayers and escort them out, confiscating their spray-equipment they were foolishly carrying in their backpacks in the process.
He feels bad enough for that to hide from the glances of his colleagues, but not enough to suppress his grin.
At a quarter to nine, the three of them stroll in the direction of the exit, following the voice from the intercom that wishes them a pleasant evening, accompanied by the rustle and bustle of the shops shuffling the last shoppers out and preparing for the night.
While Robin should already be in his hiding-place in the women’s bathroom, locked inside the supply-closet with brooms and tons of toilet-paper, Jay and Jensen move to separate exits. Jared is supposed to make his way left, find the shop that’s being re-decorated and therefore not shut as securely as any other, Jensen moves right.
The door to the maintenance-corridors is locked, of course, but the alarm has been - should have been - disabled by Robin already. A shot of adrenalin makes his heart pound and his ears rush, but there is no sound when Jensen picks the lock and slips in.
The corridors, unlike the bright, golden public displays on the outside, are dull-grey. The walls are bare and not even covered in wallpaper or any kind of paint, and Jensen aches for anyone who has to walk around here regularly. If Jay were here, he wouldn’t be able to resist and leave a colorful reminder of the world outside, but they don’t have the time. In a short while, everyone would be gone and the cleaning-crew would make their way through the empty hallways so the splendor of capitalism can once again lure people into its honey-trap.
Alright, so he dislikes malls. A little.
Jensen finds a hiding-place in a small room next to the administration-office, sets his ass on the hard, itchy carpeting and leans back against the wall.
He’s not visible should someone look inside, only if they’d go in and really spare the time to search the room would he be in trouble. But it’s a dull room, nothing in it but tables, a few flipcharts, boxes with papers for the chart and a white wall, probably to shine the latest power-point-presentation against.
The boxes give him the perfect shelter. Jensen rearranged the charts a little so they lean closer together but not so much that it would look deliberate. They cover his head, and he prepares for a long wait. It’s only nine-ten and the security would be out and checking for thieves and idiots at least until ten, if not longer.
Just as he closes his eyes to get some rest, at least, if not real sleep, he feels his cell vibrate against his leg.
It’s a gift from Goldi, an old one that she says she doesn’t need any more since Willie got her that new Iphone-thingamaybob. Her words.
It’s Jared.
in place, targets doin rounds
Jensen smiles. Painstakingly types an answer.
good fr ya, 007
don’t mock, Moneypenny
Please, m at least Q
Q? You cant even invent toast, jens.
At least I don’t burn down a block with toast…
Unexpectedly, the time flies by. Jensen doesn’t want to know how much money they spent on texting, but it’s better than sitting alone in the dark. Robin joins in a few times, updating on the cleaning-crews’ gossip.
Twice, the door opens and the beam of a flashlight sweeps across the walls. It never lingers, though, but Jensen could really live without the pounding in his heart
~*~*~*~
round ended Jay texts at eleven-fifteen. It’s the guard’s third round, their last until the early morning-hours. It’s the perfect opportunity, at least four hours uninterrupted spraying, if the cameras won’t pick them up.
And they shouldn’t, if Robin did his job. It’s really cool to have an electrician in their crew…
Swiftly, Jensen leaves his hiding-place, sneaks through the corridors and back outside into the empty, dark mall. The security-lights are dimmer than the golden hue from the day, but it’s enough to see everything.
On the second floor, on top of Bob’s Coffee-Bunker, he finds Robin crouched behind the railing, uncoiling the rope that will keep them anchored. Jared is unpacking the tool-belts, cans and other equipment they stashed in a safe hiding-spot. They have to work heads-down, they decided during the planning. It’s uncomfortable but way better than hanging helplessly in the air in case the guards spot them.
With quick movements, they tie the ropes to the mall's pillars, the other ends already fastened to their bodies. Jensen is on lookout first and he walks over to the chosen spot from which he can see the door the guards usually come out of. In case they change their routine, Robin installed two small cams pointed to the other two entrances - or exits? - two small screens making it possible for Jensen to spot trouble as soon as it appears.
For half an hour, he sits on the cold floor, feels his ass fall asleep and wishes he could do more than just hear his friends work. The shhhhhhht-clack-clack-clack - shhhhhhht and the low voices make him curious. He knows how it should look, but there's always a difference between the sketch and the finished work. Especially when he's not doing all the work himself.
Still, he trusts them. Jared especially, but Robin's good with color too, has a sharp eye for detail and the certain something that sets him apart from the mediocre sprayers. He's got wit, more than Jensen can claim for himself. Where Jensen gets dark and moody sometimes, accompanied with Robin, there will always be an eye-twinkling joke hidden in the art.
Jay, in comparison, is full-out laughter
~*~*~*~
“Your turn,” Robin mutters close to him and Jensen scrambles upright. He'd drifted off a little, not so much that he wouldn't spot trouble but on the other hand, he hadn't heard his friend sneak up to his position. With an apologetic smile, he hands over the screens, pops his spine back in the original place and heads over to Jay, who's drinking from the water-bottle in huge, greedy swallows. His head's flushed from blood and his hair is all over the place, but he looks happy and alive, eyes aglow in the red face and blinding-white teeth making him look like the Cheshire-cat right before it vanishes to leave just the teeth floating in midair.
“We did the most important part, now it's your turn, Picasso,” he grins at Jensen and hands him the tool-belt with cans and an array of nozzles.
Jensen slips into his latex-gloves and pulls down the goggles to protect his eyes. This close to the painting, a misplaced spray of aerosol could blind him permanently and the plastic lab-glasses they usually use would slip away the moment he hung his head over the railing.
Yes, they had to find that out the hard way.
“Gimme space, Woody.” Jensen smirks, pushing past his friend to look over the railing. He sees the upside-down version of his sketch, an explosion of color and form and his brain needs awhile to figure out what exactly he's seeing. “It's good,” he says, and he can feel the pride pool in Jared's belly.
Jay knows - should know - that he's good. He never needed people to tell him that, but whenever Jensen praises his work, he looks like a fucking Christmas-tree, full of light and fire.
Weird, that kid.
“I'm going over,” Jensen announces and hitches himself up, leaning over until gravity pulls on his upper body and he falls.
~*~*~*~
They don't often spray upside-down. It's dangerous, the head-rush messes with your perception and you underestimate time and the danger you could be in, overestimate your skills. That's why you always spray with a partner, never alone.
Still, the adrenaline-hit you get from hanging on a rope, directly in front of your painting, nose-to-nose with the wall, the moment you overbalance and feel yourself slip is so perfect, it makes it hard to resist the temptation.
~*~*~*~
Jensen is hanging right in front of a pool of green. He can see the gray shades of the squirrel. Left of him is a blue bird, upside-down of course and he's highlighting the shaggy hair of one of the characters in the picture when he feels something tugging on his rope.
“Not yet.” he growls, replaces the light ocher with iron-gray and that's when it happens.
The tugging gets more urgent, the fucking latex is sticking to the ocher-can and the nuzzle of the new can snatches in a fold of his white shirt. He can't hear anything beside the blood rushing in his ears but even that stills to complete silence when he loses the grip on the can, fumbles to catch it but has no choice than to watch it fly upward - no, down, of course! - where it hits the mall's fake marble-flooring without a sound.
~*~
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